


A thousand shades of blue

by orphan_account



Series: Soulmates [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Mourning, Soulmates see in black and white until they meet, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2018-01-24 17:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1613732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ori never saw the appeal of soulmates.<br/>The only thing he cared about was to finally see what colours were like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A thousand shades of blue

**Author's Note:**

> There's been a post going around on tumblr recently about soulmates who only start seeing in colour after meeting each other.  
> It has wonderfully heartbreaking implications, so of course I had to write about it.

Ori's desire to meet his soulmate was a strictly professional one. He had very little interest in this whole love business. It was a waste of time and energy, a loss of freedom. He didn't want to be in love.

He just wanted to see _colours_.

His mother, who had met her soulmate in her youth, and lost her to the dragon, told him about colours sometimes. They were something that could not be described, not really, but she tried anyway. Blue was like fresh water coming out of a river, or the smell of mint. Green was grass that had just been cut, and a young spring's morning. Yellow was the warmth of a summer's spring and soft sand running through her hands. Red was a fire in the middle of winter and a tight hug. Purple was night falling and the cry of a raven.

Colours seemed fascinating and wonderful and strange and Ori longed to see them more than he could have said. If the price for them was to be forced to deal with a lover, than so be it.

 

Of the many things Ori had expected from this quest, meeting his soulmate had never been one.

Of the many things Ori had expected from his soulmate, having them be a king had never been one.

But when Thorin had arrived at mister Baggins's, he'd greeted Ori, who had been recruited through Balin and had never met the king before. And as Thorin shook his hand to welcome him in his company, Ori shrieked. The world had exploded before his eyes at that touch and he collapsed to the ground. Later he learned that Thorin had looked ready to faint.

It was the part of finding your soulmate that people rarely told you about. Ari had mentioned a headache, and Ori had had friends who had taken a day off after finding their One... he had assumed it was because they wanted time to be with their soulmates. He'd never have guessed that it would be so painful to see the world go from black and white to this explosion of sensation.

“We'll have to stay here a day or two, until you're both better,” he heard Balin tell Thorin. “Can't travel like that.”

“I'll wear a blindfold, and Dwalin will guide my pony. I refuse to be delayed because of this.”

And just like that, Ori decided that yes, he could fall in loved with Thorin. Clearly they were both equally annoyed by this soulmate thing after all.

“And the boy?” Balin asked.

“I'm coming too!” Ori exclaimed, keeping his eyes carefully closed. “I signed a contract, didn't I? It's going to take more than this to make me change my mind! I'm still coming. My brothers can guide my pony until I'm better. I'm coming.”

Dori told him afterwards that Thorin had smiled then, and it gave Ori hope. Maybe this whole thing wouldn't be so bad after all.

 

It took Ori three days to open his eyes without getting headaches, but everyone was very kind to him the entire time.

And it was worth it in the end. Colours were amazing. There were so many of them, more than he could have ever imagined, and they were everywhere all the time, only fading away at night. Bombur and Gloin, the only others to see them, gave him the names of each colour. Ori often found these names frustrating though. How could both the sky and Kili's tunics be blue when they looked nothing the same? How could so many things just be called brown when there were so many shades, so many _variations_? They all needed names of their own, they were all beautiful enough to deserve a name of their own.

“Elves have more names for colours than we do,” Balin told him. “But then, they spend many more years seeing them of course, and I'm told elves find their soulmates more easily than we do.”

“Then I will find elves and ask them to teach me all the right names!” Ori decided. “When this is over I am going to paint all the colours of the world, and I'll need to know their right names!”

“Or you could give them new, dwarvish names,” Thorin grunted. “Better than to use elvish ones.”

Ori blushed, though he wasn't sure why, and nodded. It wasn't new that the king disliked elves. Ori had no quarrel with them, and he hoped he wasn't expected to start hating them too, just because his soulmate did.

Not that either of them was particularly trying to act on this soulmate thing of course. Thorin only talked to him to give him orders, as he did to most of the company. And Ori wasn't seeking him out either, preferring to chat with Dwalin, or the princes, or even their burglar. For all that he knew, there had been a mistake about them. But he didn't mind, since it allowed him to see colours at last.

 

They'd been in Rivendell for two days when Thorin came to seek him one afternoon. Demanding that Ori follow him somewhere. The young scribe followed of course, and the king silently took him to a small garden. In there, Ori saw the most extraordinary of flowers, with colours unlike anything he had ever known and shades to beautiful to be true.

“I thought this might please you,” Thorin said.

“It does,” Ori breathlessly replied. “Thank you so much.”

The king smiled at him kindly, and once again, Ori thought that he might manage to fall in love with him.

He decided that the first colour to which he would give a dwarvish name would be the blue of Thorin's eyes.

 

Even after that moment in Rivendell's garden, they never really talked. The time was not right for it, Ori supposed. Negotiating a relationship would have to wait until after the quest, until Thorin truly ruled and they didn't constantly feared for their lives. Ori didn't mind. Even without words, there was something building between them. He felt it in the way Thorin looked at him sometimes and smiled, knowing that he did the same.

And they were protecting each other. The whole company did that of course, but Ori felt that it meant something more when Thorin did it for him. When Thorin stepped ahead after the Great Gobling threatened to have Ori tortured and killed. And Ori, in turn, fought with everything he had to protect his king, his soulmate. Because Thorin was important. Because Thorin had to live.

And if Ori wanted the king to live not just for himself, but also because he couldn't bear to lose colours, then no one would ever know.

 

“I thought I was going to lose you,” Thorin told him that first night at Beorn's. “In the goblin's caves, and on that tree... I do not know what I would have done. The thought of it is unbearable.”

They were the only ones still up, sitting together by the fire. It had not been planned, not really. Ori had just wanted to draw all the images flooding his mind, and so he'd stayed up... and it was strange that Dori had not sent him to bed when he'd gone, really. But maybe Thorin had asked for it, or possibly Dori himself had decided that they needed time alone.

“I must not be what you dreamt of when you thought of your future soulmate,” the king sighed. “A dwarf with less time left than the years you have already lived...”

“I didn't want a soulmate at all,” Ori claimed, because it was the truth, and because he didn't want Thorin to think he was a disappointment.

The king still flinched, and looked pained for a second. In the blink of an eye, he was smiling again.

“But seeing colours makes you happy, does it not? So that is something. I am glad that our situation gives you this at least, even if the rest is unwanted.”

“It's not unwanted,” Ori retorted. “Not anymore. I didn't want a soulmate before, but now that I've met you, I don't mind so much.”

Thorin's eyes lit up as he smiled. Which the fire close by, they weren't the same blue as usual, and Ori decided that this colour too would need a name of its own.

“I cannot court you properly now,” Thorin said. “But when things are better... when we have peace, I shall want to talk to you and learn more about you. I never thought that I would ever meet my soulmate, I thought they had been lost to Smaug's fury. I did not mind because there was too much to do to allow myself such emotions... but I am glad I met you. You are nothing like I imagined, in the best of ways. I almost wish I could court you now.”

“When we are in Erebor,” Ori replied, shyly taking the king's hand. “We will have all the time in the world then.”

Thorin's smile widened, and his eyes appeared to change colour yet again. Ori would have to name all of their shades, he realized.

He did not mind.

 

The first time Ori thought he could hate Thorin was when the king left both of his nephews behind in Esgaroth.

The second time Ori thought he could hate Thorin was when the king tried to kill Bilbo.

It mattered little that Thorin was in his right both time. It was not his actions as such that Ori reproached, it was the manner in which they were conducted. There would have been kinder ways to tell Kili he would not follow them on this last part of the journey. And Bilbo, traitor that he was, should have deserved a trial, because hobbit or not he was one of them, and he deserved the justice of dwarves.

It would have been so easy to hate Thorin, even with the thousands of unnamed colours hiding in his eyes.

But for all of his faults, Thorin had looked so broken each time, when he thought that no one could see him, and Ori only loved him more. He couldn't be happy with the king all the time, soulmate or not. And when they would be courting, he would just tell Thorin why he disapproved, why these things were wrong, and he was almost sure that Thorin would listen.

 

“When this battle is over, our courtship will start,” Thorin promised, taking Ori's hand in his. “When the evil of Dol Guldur is gone, I will be yours only.”

“You will be Erebor's,” the young scribe corrected, trying to smile and failing. “You will always be Erebor's. But I will be happy to have its scraps, and I will stand by your side and help you as much as I can.”

Thorin rose the boy's hand to kiss it tenderly.

“You help me already, more than you could know. Stay safe. I do not know what I would do if I lost you, my love.”

It was the first time that Thorin called him that, and Ori felt is if his heart might explode from joy. Before he could stop himself he was on his tiptoes and pressing his lips against the king's in a chaste kiss. It wasn't proper, not when they weren't courting yet, but Ori did not care about propriety in that moment. He cared only about Thorin, and the sudden terror at the idea of that battle.

“Take care of yourself,” he ordered the king. “I'll be very cross at you if you're not careful.”

Thorin smiled, and kissed him again.

It felt so right that it gave Ori courage. Surely the universe would never dare to disturb something that felt so entirely right.

 

The sky was beautiful at the end of the day, with shades of red and orange and purple. Ori stared at it for as long as he dared, because it was better than looking around him. There were so many broken bodies, orcs and elves and dwarves and men, who all looked the same, covered in grey mud and red blood.

He didn't like these particular colours, he decided.

But he was still glad to see them. Bad colours were better than no colours at all, because they meant that Thorin still lived, and it was a relief.

Now all he had to do was to find his brothers, and pray that they too had survived.

 

He found Dori soon after nightfall, stuck under the body of a warg.

Wounded but alive.

Dori could barely walk so Ori had to carry him back to camp, and there they met Nori. He had a broken arm, and so many bruises that he was barely recognisable, but he was alive too.

His brothers were alive, and his soulmate was alive, and nothing else mattered.

When he inquired after the king, Oin, who had seen him, said that Thorin was asleep and resting. He seemed worried, but Ori wasn't. They had survived this. They would be together. Everything was fine now, everything was right.

 

When it happened, the sun had just risen. Ori had been trying to feed Dori when dark spots started appearing at the corner of his eyes. They were just spots at first, gray spots that grew and grew and covered his eyes until all colours were gone.

Ori dropped the bowl he'd been holding, struggling for breath.

It wasn't possible.

It wasn't _fair_.

They had survived. They were going to be happy. Thorin had survived the battle and was going to court him. They were going to be happy.

It wasn't fair, and it wasn't possible. Ori ran out of their tent, ignoring his brothers' cries. He ran and ran and ran until he arrived to where Thorin was being cared for, and saw Dwalin and Bilbo crying.

It wasn't fair.

Ori fell to his knees and cried.

It wasn't _fair_.

 

People pitied him afterwards.

He hated it.

He hated the careful way his brother talked to him, avoiding any mention of Thorin and his nephews, avoiding even the topic of the battle.

He hated people's condolence on his loss.

He hated the greyness of the world, the dull tones that not so long ago had been bright and attrative and alive.

And more than anything he hated his dreams when all that they featured were eyes of a thousand shades of blue that he would see nevermore.

 

 


End file.
